Formal charges expected after UI student arrested over fake IDs

CHAMPAIGN — A University of Illinois student believed to be producing fake identification is due in court in Urbana Thursday.

UI police arrested Arturo Ibrahim Perez-Vera, 18, at his room in Weston Hall, 1209 Euclid St., C, about 11:15 p.m. Saturday. He was released from jail on his own recognizance Sunday.

UI police Sgt. Tom Geis said officers were sent to the dormitory because a staff member smelled cannabis coming from a second-floor room.

Once there, she and another officer found Perez-Vera and five other people in the room, as well as open alcohol and drug paraphernalia on a desk.

There was a woman's purse on the floor that the sole woman in the room denied was hers. When the officer looked in it, she found an ID for that woman and another obviously fraudulent Illinois driver's license with a different woman's name on it.

The officer saw syringes for filling printer cartridges on the desk and a safe, which Perez-Vera let the officer look in.

Inside were another ID card that appeared to be fraudulent, a bag of blank ID cards, a template that appeared to be used to print ID cards, numerous clear state of Illinois seals and another license that was a duplicate of the fraudulent one she found in the woman's purse.

The officer arrested Perez-Vera and when she asked him if he was making fake IDs, he declined to speak to her.

In his desk, she found a binder with laminate coverings containing state of Illinois and Rhode Island holograms used on ID cards and numerous papers with names, birth dates, signatures and other identifying information that appeared to be evidence of the fraudulent manufacture of identification cards.

Geis said police seized the safe, a printer, ink cartridges, ink syringes, a flash drive, a computer hard drive and the items found in the safe and desk.